


Wassail

by Ladybug_21



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Bletchley Park, Christmas Caroling, F/F, World War II, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21716716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: "Caroling?"  Jean turned to Lucy."Even during times of war, Christmas should be all about joy and harmony," Lucy said earnestly.
Relationships: Susan Gray/Millie Harcourt
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Wassail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deadsandsflashing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadsandsflashing/gifts).



> This [Dear Yuletide Writer letter](https://swearingcanary.dreamwidth.org/1006.html) asked what winters/Christmases at Bletchley Park might have been like, and I couldn't resist playing with that idea a bit. I love these characters to pieces, but I own no rights to them nor to any of the carols discussed.

"I was thinking we could do caroling this year," Lucy told Millie and Susan as they returned from lunch one day. "My friends and I used to always go around our neighbourhood during Advent. It would be a way to cheer everyone up, wouldn't it?"

"Until they hear me try to warble out a high note, at least," Millie laughed. Upon seeing Lucy's smile falter slightly, she added, "It's a lovely idea, Lucy, really. How many people have you recruited?"

"Well, you two would be my first," Lucy said hesitantly, slipping into her chair at her desk.

"And we'll be very glad to join," said Susan firmly. "Like Millie said, it sounds like a wonderful way to bring some Yuletide spirit to Bletchley Park."

Privately, Susan would rather have spent the rest of the war hiding in an Anderson shelter than sing one note in front of Jean McBrien or any of their other intimidating superiors. But seeing the way Lucy's face had lit up upon gaining her friends' support made the prospective mortification more than worthwhile.

"Oh, good!" Lucy clapped her hands excitedly. "I was going to save them for Christmas Day presents, but I've knitted you both scarves, and you can use them to stay warm while we're out in the cold!"

"Lucy, darling, you didn't have to!" Millie took a seat at her own desk. "Thank you. I do love a good knit scarf—the thought alone makes me feel cosy. So, what're we singing?"

"I was thinking we could each pick a few of our favourite carols," replied Lucy eagerly, flipping over a page in her notebook to a very short list that she had started. "Mine are 'The Holly and the Ivy' and 'I Saw Three Ships,' and if you can each give me one or two, we can put together a nice set, don't you think?"

"Yes..."

Susan's mind was clearly already far away, dredging her favourite carols from beneath the layers of ciphers and patterns. Millie smiled and tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"Well, my favourites are ' _Stille Nacht_ ' and ' _Es ist ein Ros entsprungen_ ,' but I suppose those are both too German for the present moment. Perhaps French is better? ' _Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle_ ,' or ' _Il est né, le divin enfant_ '? Oh, if we're feeling very ambitious, perhaps we can attempt some Basque, I do love ' _Birjina gaztetto bat zegoen_ '..."

Lucy's eyes had gone very wide.

"I'm not sure I can pronounce the words to any of those," she said in a small voice.

"Don't pay attention to Millie, she's just showing off," sighed Susan. She gently nudged Millie's leg with her foot, earning herself a mischievous grin. "All of those songs have English-language translations, we can do those instead."

"Yes, but they all _sound_ better in the original," Millie complained. "Besides, when I sing them in English, I have to think about the meaning."

"Like you don't speak German or French well enough to understand carols in those languages," Susan teased her.

"Fair enough, _touché_." Millie poked Susan's leg with one toe for emphasis.

"Are there any carols you like singing in English?" Lucy asked diplomatically.

"The Gloucestershire Wassail and 'Deck the Halls,'" Millie replied promptly.

"But..." Lucy thought very seriously about both of those options for a moment. "Neither of those have much of anything to do with the Christmas story, Millie."

Millie shrugged expressively and shot an impish smile at Susan, who rolled her eyes.

"Just write down 'Silent Night' and 'Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella' for Millie," she told Lucy. "And as for me..."

"If you say 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' because of all of the numbers and repetitive patterns, I shall tease you mercilessly from now through Epiphany," Millie smirked.

"Goodness, no." Susan wrinkled her nose. "I was going to say the Coventry Carol, but, well..."

"What is it?" All of the mirth had gone out of Millie's tone as she observed Susan's troubled expression.

"Do you think it's too soon?" Susan asked quietly. "Will people not want to be reminded? It's not the most cheerful of tunes or subjects, and..." She shuddered. "And Coventry's been hit so hard by the war that I wonder if it would cause people more pain than joy."

Susan looked down at the top of her desk, at the most recent intercepts left there for her to decrypt: rows and columns of neat five-letter sequences, tidy and classifiable and solvable. A far cry from the disorderly, chaotic suffering and loss of those in the centres of bombed-out cities and on the battlefields of France and Italy. Susan tried not to think about those aspects of the war, because how could she—just an ordinary girl in a tin hut—begin to solve a problem as vast as the human and psychological toll that this war was having on her country? Better to focus on the small bits that were within her control, that made _some_ difference, even if she sometimes couldn't see where her little piece fit into the larger scheme of the puzzle.

She had shared such thoughts with Millie as best she could—Millie, whose forte was the nuances of spoken languages, who could express herself so much more clearly and confidently than Susan. So Susan wasn't surprised when Millie's hand reached under the desk and tenderly seized her own, held it fast to remind Susan that she was doing everything she could to help end the war and save lives. Susan squeezed Millie's hand back and took a deep breath.

"Put me down for 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,'" she told Lucy in a brighter voice. "Still a sombre tune, but a festive enough message, I think."

"There, that's five already! A very good start." Millie flicked at the end of a pencil on her desk with her free hand as she thought. "You don't suppose we could order books of carols to be sent in?"

"Well, _I'm_ certainly not asking Jean," scoffed Susan.

"Asking me what?" As if summoned by her name, Jean had appeared behind Lucy, who jumped slightly. "And why aren't you three working? Lunch ended fifteen minutes ago."

"Lucy's proposed that we cheer up Bletchley Park a bit this Yuletide by caroling," explained Millie. (She was the least afraid of Jean, and thus the most attuned to how protective the aloof-seeming supervisor felt of her youngest girl in particular.)

"Caroling?" Jean turned to Lucy.

"Even during times of war, Christmas should be all about joy and harmony," Lucy said earnestly.

"Hmm." Jean peered over Lucy's shoulder at the list assembled. "Not a bad assortment."

"If you propose anything yourself, you're committing to joining us, you know," Millie informed her.

"I don't think you're in any position to enforce that, dear," Jean shot back, but a hint of a smile played about her lips. "You could stand to add a few of the old Latin standards. ' _Adeste fideles_ ,' ' _In dulci jubilo_ ,' ' _Veni, veni, Emmanuel_ '..."

"Don't worry, Lucy, they all have English-language versions, as well," Susan reassured her.

"I wouldn't have pegged you as an expert on Christmas carols, Miss McBrien." Millie was clearly delighted by this discovery.

"Are you implying that I don't exactly radiate Yuletide cheer, Millie?" (Lucy would have been terrified if Miss McBrien didn't still look slightly amused about the whole matter.) "My sister was quite a good soprano. Couldn't get past the first day of December without her singing snippets of carols all around the house."

"Does she still sing?" Lucy asked. "Not that we could invite her to join us, of course, but..."

"No," replied Jean softly. "No, she doesn't."

Jean's breath suddenly caught, and she turned away to discreetly wipe a tear from her cheek. Susan threw Millie a swift and somewhat panicked glance, but Millie was watching Jean with concern.

"You might add 'In the Bleak Midwinter' to your list," Jean added after a moment, once she had regained enough composure to sound almost like her usual brisk self. "It was... it would mean a lot to me."

Lucy, looking just as startled as Susan felt, nodded and added it to her list.

"Do..." Lucy took a deep breath and screwed her courage to the sticking place. "Do you think we might be able to have books of carols brought in? So we have all the words, I mean. Or, even if one could be brought in for a day, I could take a look at all of the songs we're singing and write down the verses for everyone..."

Jean's expression was still unusually soft as she placed a hand on Lucy's shoulder.

"I'll see what I can do," she promised, then cleared her throat. "Now, enough of all this, for the moment. Back to work, you three."

Susan finally turned her attention to the intercept before her, her mind whirring back into its usual analyses of patterns and variations. But after a few moments of trying to ignore the persistent sequence being rapped out next to her, she glanced over at Millie, who stopped tapping her pencil against the desk and winked. Susan furrowed her brow as Millie began tapping again, trying to work out individual letters of Morse code in the taps, but she quickly gave up and turned her focus back to her intercept.

* * *

True to her word, and to Susan's amazement, Jean managed to procure four books of carols for their use. To Susan's even greater shock, the strict supervisor took Millie seriously and showed up at the one rehearsal that Lucy scheduled to run music, the day before their caroling. Jean, it turned out, had undersold her own abilities even as she sang her sister's praises; she had a strong mezzo voice and handled each alto line with a precision and confidence that managed to be the only things unsurprising to Susan about this turn of events.

Wanting to be fair, Lucy stayed up several hours later than usual to knit a matching scarf for Miss McBrien, and Millie gently teased Lucy as the girl predictably yawned all through their shift the following day. But when they met Jean outside of Hut Four that evening, and Lucy presented her with the hastily knitted scarf—a bit knobbly in places, but still very warm—Jean looked quite surprised, and rather moved. She put the scarf around her neck and carefully tucked the ends into the neckline of her woollen coat.

"Thank you, dear," she said, and, after a moment, added, "Well, shall we, then?"

After an hour of caroling out in the cold in front of the House, Susan was freezing but very glad that she'd swallowed her nerves and committed to the endeavour. More than one lofty figure from the House, whom she'd only observed from a distance, had wandered outside to listen to the quartet of singers, their breath rising in little puffs of condensation on the cold air. One even came up to shake everyone's hand when they had finished "Good Christian Men, Rejoice."

"Well done, girls, you've just impressed Mr Alexander," Jean muttered to them when the man had disappeared.

"What?" gasped Susan. " _That_ was..."

"To be fair, you three _had_ already impressed both him and the Prof once before," Jean clarified, shooting her team a meaningful glance.

Millie nudged Susan with her hip, and Susan blushed a bit in pleased embarrassment as they began their next set of songs.

"D'you think people enjoyed it?" Lucy asked as they trudged back inside a further hour later. "Besides Mr Alexander, I mean."

"I'd say so," said Millie. "Didn't you see those girls from Hut Six who wandered by halfway through and stood there for maybe a quarter hour? One of them kept wiping her eyes, and I don't think it was just because of the cold."

"I'm sure it reminded many people of their loved ones back home," Jean told Lucy as they stopped in the hallway. "And, since it's certainly not classified, you should feel free to tell your family that you organised such a thoughtful treat for all of us—without naming any names, of course. Cocoa, anyone?" she added, opening her door, and when Lucy's eyes lit up, Millie and Susan traded a grin and followed Lucy inside.

"I can't remember the last time I had cocoa!" Lucy exclaimed, placing her book of carols on Jean's table and dropping down into an armchair that was pressed against the wall. "Where ever did you get it?"

"If you can say," Millie added slyly as she slid into a chair at the table.

"I can indeed, Millie Harcourt," replied Jean, looking through a cupboard. "Had it from before the war. Don't worry, the tin's sealed, it should still be good. Oh, and I _might_ have a dash of something you can add to it, if you'd like—Lucy was telling me earlier that she'd overruled all of your requests for carols about knocking on neighbours' doors to demand mulled cider."

"Bless Lucy for wanting her caroling more spiritually pure than that, although _I_ certainly won't turn down whatever it is you're offering." Millie grinned. "Really, though, I'm surprised and impressed that you haven't broken into that tin of cocoa before now."

"And who would I drink cocoa with here at Bletchley, the boffins up at the House?" Jean snorted, setting the tin of cocoa down on the table, along with her tin of rationed milk powder and some precious sugar cubes. "Which reminds me, they had to redistribute our cups with new staff coming in, and I only kept one for myself. Would you mind horribly going back out into the cold to fetch a few of your own?"

"Not at all," said Susan. "Lucy?"

But Lucy, still bundled in her coat and hand-knit scarf and matching hat, had curled up in Jean's armchair like a little cat and quietly dozed off. Jean fetched a crocheted afghan from an adjacent room and tucked it around Lucy, then shot Millie and Susan a look that dared them to wake the sleeping girl. The two took the hint and retreated back out into the chill alone.

As they left their own accommodations, with three of their host family's mugs rolled up in silk scarves at the bottom of one of Millie's old handbags, Millie seized Susan's arm.

"Look," she gasped.

The first snow of the year was beginning to fall in tiny flurries of white. Millie tried to catch a few snowflakes on her tongue, and Susan laughed.

"No two are exactly alike, you know," she told Millie. "Each one forms a completely unique crystal pattern."

"Mmm," Millie replied. She was looking not at the snowflakes, but at Susan, whose unblemished face looked angelic in the soft light, wrapped in Lucy's scarf and with tiny droplets of crystal fluttering down all around her. "Rather like people, aren't they."

Susan knew that Millie was just being poetic, but in times like these, the lives of human beings did seem all too delicate and ephemeral. She shivered.

"What is it?"

"Oh, I don't know." Susan sighed. "I'm just grappling with the fact that everything is so absolutely horrible out in the world, and there are people dying and starving and freezing to death, and we're here at Christmastime without our families—without even the ability to _tell_ our families what we're doing here—and yet..."

"And yet?"

"And yet I feel so incredibly peaceful and happy right now," Susan confessed. "I don't know if that makes me mad or heartless or selfish or something worse, but there it is."

Millie stopped and put her hands on Susan's shoulders.

"Susan Havers, that makes you none of the above," she said. "It simply makes you _grateful_ for everything you have here: music, cocoa, friends..."

 _And you_ , Susan thought, _here I have you, Millie._

And in an instant, the distance had closed between them, and Millie's warm lips were pressed against hers with the snow falling all around them.

"Happy Christmas, Millie," murmured Susan, her cheeks suddenly flushed against the cold night air.

"Happy Christmas, yourself," Millie laughed, her forehead pressed against Susan's. "Come on, let's get back to my favourite part of this season—namely, enjoying warm libations with good company, and all associated revelry."

As they wandered back towards Jean's, Millie slipped her hand into Susan's, and, after a moment, began tapping her index finger against the side of Susan's hand. Susan once more tried to read Morse code into it, but after a moment, she realised that Millie actually was tapping out the rhythm of "Greensleeves"—or, rather, "What Child Is This?" Susan corrected herself. She nearly laughed, realising that that was probably what Millie had been tapping out on her desk the day they were choosing Christmas carols with Lucy. But instead, Susan simply smiled and, tapping her own finger back against Millie's gloved hand, joined her in their own voiceless rendition of the last line of the refrain.


End file.
